Surfer rides highest wave ever caught

That's one big splash. Daredevil Garret McNamara of Hawaii claims to have ridden the highest wave ever caught by a surfer, a 30-metre monster off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal. His record is still to be confirmed, but if it's verified, McNamara will have smashed the previous record of 24 metres, which he set in the same spot in November 2011.

Nazaré is a prized surfing spot thanks to a 210-kilometre-long undersea canyon that reaches depths of up to 5 km. Narrowing as it approaches land, the canyon funnels the power of the Atlantic Ocean towards the coast, creating the massive waves that surfers crave.

Don't expect to repeat McNamara's feat with any old board though - big-wave surfers use specialist boards, dubbed guns, which are much longer, thicker and narrower than normal ones, helping the surfer stay in control.

2 Comments

They don't use the big 'gun' boards for this type of surfing. Waves this size can only be caught by being towed-in using a jet ski to give you enough speed to catch the wave. Tow-in boards are much shorter and have foot straps on them. Guns are used for paddle-in surfing and are only good for waves up to 20 ft or so.

mark
on January 30, 2013 7:19 PM

Regarding why monster waves can't be surfed, safety is a big deal, but another reason is that they're too fast relative to their height. I.e., the surfer is lifted faster than gravity causes him to fall and move forward. Moster wave surfers are often towed by jet skis to get enough forward momentum before the wave moves out from underneath them.